Leadout Racing

I have been thinking about winning this race since finishing 4th place last year. The weather was awesome and it made for an extremely fast race. As I lined up at the front of the expert clydesdale group I went through my race plan one last time. At the start, I immediately went to the front and pulled very hard almost all the way to the trail.  As we entered the trail I was in 4th place and already had a gap on the rest of the field. Ray Dybowski was in front and was putting up a good pace. Ray and I took turns pulling and after about 20 minutes Ray and I had seperated ourselves from everyone else. We weaved our way around many of the other slower racers and about 30 minutes into the race I lost Ray on one of the hills. I rode alone for several minutes and assumed I was going to ride alone the rest of the race. Then out of nowhere, here comes Ray passing me and pushing the pace some more. We would ride the rest of the race together taking turns with the pulls. I was able to get ahead at every hill and knew that I could win the race by waiting for the last hill. The only problem was that I didn’t know where the last hill was as I had prerode the coarse but didn’t know the exact route toward the end.  Every hill toward the end I took it like it was my last.  I went balls out to the top, dropping Ray in the process only to have him bridge back up to me.  As I got to the top of the last hill the 2nd place SS passed me and I was able to get on his wheel and ride it to the finish line.  I ended up beating Ray by 6 seconds and we were 4 minutes ahead of the 3rd place.  This was one of the most exciting races for me.  Ray and I battled back and forth through the entire race in the end I was thankful to have the extra push up the hills.  I am already looking forward to next years race and defending my win!

Dan K